LITMIR.BIZ

       23

      Logan slowed down as they reached the outskirts of Oldmeldrum. ‘How we doing for time?’

      Faulds scowled. ‘Badly.’

      ‘Not my fault there was a tractor.’ He threaded the car through the village centre, making for Insch’s house. ‘Anyway, if we stick the siren on all the way back we can—’ There was a familiar-looking Range Rover up ahead. It only stayed in vision for a second, and then it was hidden by the curve in the road.

      ‘What?’

      ‘I think that was Insch …’ Logan pulled up outside the inspector’s house. Where the muck-encrusted four-by-four should have been, there was just a patch of oily gravel. ‘Someone must’ve got through on the phone. Told him it was going down at two.’

      ‘Are you telling me we came all this way for nothing?’

      ‘We can still catch him.’ Logan ignored the thirty limit all the way up to the T-junction. The Range Rover was just visible, driving along the A947 back towards Aberdeen. Logan followed it.

      ‘What if it’s not even his car?’

      Logan accelerated, closing the gap. There were two vehicles between them and the four-by-four: a blue Audi and a tatty Daihatsu 4Trak, Logan peered past them at the car in front. ‘No … it’s definitely Insch’s.’

      ‘Well, flash your lights, or something.’

      Alec shuffled himself forwards. ‘Jesus, that thing gets filthier every time I see it; you could grow tatties on that.’

      Flashing the lights didn’t seem to help so Logan leant on the horn. The driver turned, glancing back over his shoulder – only it wasn’t Insch.

      ‘Fuck!’ Logan gripped the steering wheel. ‘It’s him!’

      ‘What? Of course it’s—’

      ‘Wiseman! Wiseman’s driving the car!’

      ‘WHAT?’

      He grabbed the car’s radio handset as the Range Rover accelerated away uphill. ‘He’s seen us!’ The road was too twisty to get past the Audi and the 4Trak. Logan fumbled on the dashboard for the siren switch, and the handset went flying: clattering down into the footwell. ‘Bloody hell!’ But at least the siren’s wail made the slowcoaches get out of the way. Logan hammered it.

      The black slab of Alec’s HDTV camera poked between the seats.

      ‘Put your bloody seatbelt on!’

      Over the brow of the hill. A hard right curve and the Range Rover was putting as much distance between them as possible. Round a wide bend, the four-by-four overtaking a JCB digger.

      Logan put his foot down and followed suit, jerking them out into the opposite lane.

      Faulds screamed: ‘TRACTOR! TRACTOR! TRACTOR!’ A huge blue and white monstrosity was coming straight at them.

      Logan slammed on the brakes and screeched the car back to their own side of the road in a cloud of swearing and burning rubber. The thing trundled past and he accelerated out and round the digger.

      Up ahead, Wiseman threw the Range Rover hard right, leaving the main road for a little side one. Logan followed, the pool car’s back end kicking out as they slid round the corner.

      A loud CLUNK! and a fencepost went flying.

      Faulds had one hand dug into the dashboard, the other wrapped around the handle above the passenger-side door. Teeth gritted, eyes wide. ‘Who the hell taught you to drive?’

      ‘I haven’t done the pursuit training course, OK? I’m doing my best!’

      A hump in the road and the car left the tarmac for a second. ‘Oh God!’

      ‘Call the station! Tell them we’re after Wiseman!’

      Alec’s voice came from the back of the car. ‘This is bloody brilliant!’

      Faulds released his death-grip on the dashboard and scrabbled in the footwell for the radio handset as Logan wrenched the manky Vauxhall through a succession of snaking bends. Insch’s Range Rover was getting closer and closer … they were right behind it, siren blaring, lights flashing, completely unable to get past and cut Wiseman off.

      ‘Single-track bastards …’

      ‘Alpha Charlie Seven from Control, when do you—’

      ‘This is Chief Constable Faulds, we are in pursuit of—’

      A sharp bend and the pool car brushed a drystone dyke on the passenger side – a squeal of metal and a shower of sparks as Logan struggled to get them back on the road.

      ‘—Ken Wiseman. Will you watch where you’re bloody going!’

      ‘Do you want to drive?’

      ‘—repeat that? Wiseman? Are you serious?’

      Faulds went back to the handset. ‘We need back-up, now!’

      And then Wiseman slammed on his brakes. Logan was fast, but not fast enough; they clipped the back bumper. The pool car’s nose jerked left and buried itself in a beech hedge, sending orange leaves flying.

      Faulds dropped the handset again. ‘Are you trying to get us all killed?’

      ‘What the hell was that?’

      The Range Rover pulled a hard left, through an open gate and into a field of brown stubble. Logan cranked the key in the ignition. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing… ‘Come on you bastard!’ The engine roared into life. He reversed out of the hedge and put his foot to the floor, the tyres squealing as the car fishtailed into the field after Wiseman. But the Range Rover was built for this kind of thing, their scabrous Vauxhall wasn’t. It slithered and slid, churning up the mud, snaking after the four-by-four as it rumbled straight across the field and out the gate on the other side.

      ‘We’re losing him!’

      ‘—repeat: what is your location?’

      ‘Come on, come on, come on!’ The engine was beginning to sound like a cat in a tumble drier.

      ‘Somewhere south of Inverurie—’

      ‘OLDMELDRUM!’ Logan fought the bucking steering wheel, barrelling them towards the exit. ‘Not Inverurie! Three miles south of Oldmeldrum, just off the A497. Side road on the right, before you get to Hatton Crook. Where there was that minibus accident last year!’

      They clipped the gate on their way out – the car lurching forward as it finally got its tyres back on solid tarmac. Tree-lined road, amber leaves, no sign of the Range Rover. ‘Bastard!’

      Logan floored it. Hard right. Hard left. Another right and—

      A horse, pirouetting and snorting in the middle of the road. Faulds yelled ‘LOOK OUT!’ and Logan slammed on the brakes. The manky Vauxhall skidded to a halt.

      ‘What

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